Heat. Continued

After childbirth or abortion, if from any cause the uterine
discharge becomes pent up, pain and fever will quickly follow. If
understood, however, and the womb washed out, and drainage
established, pain and increased temperature will be controlled at
once, never to return, unless the cause is allowed to return.

Pain inhibits the physiological manufacture of heat, and if it did
not stop radiation, the patient would probably die from
refrigeration--from loss of all bodily heat. Hence fever may be looked
upon as one of the most remarkably uniquely conservative acts in all
the world of pathological conservatism.

Health and long life cannot be looked for by those who are careless
and indifferent about keeping their extremities warm. Cold, clammy
hands and feet indicate malnutrition, and must be cured by correcting
the bad daily habits that build this symptom.

Until the extremities keep warm from restored circulation,
following the correcting of the disease-producing habits, artificial
heat must be used to keep the feet warm. Covering on the feet and legs
to the knees should be double the weight of that over the body and
shoulders; or a jug of hot water may be kept in the foot of the bed to
use when necessary. Do not sleep with the feet against the
heater. Through the day, if sitting much, an electric pad should be
used. Keep the feet warm, and prevent further decline in health.

Do not overclothe in an effort to keep warm. Lightweight,
open-woven underwear, with heavy top clothing when going out, is the
proper way to meet the cold. When riding in cold weather, the feet
must be kept warm. Overeating and chilling spell pneumonia.

Heat of summer can be easily borne--in fact, enjoyed--if the eating
is correct. Cut the heat-producing foods down to the minimum; meat,
with all fat trimmed away, not oftener than once a day or three times
a week; fruit and salads, with milk and cheese; bread once a day for
those who are not overweight. Wear only the lightestweight, open-woven
underwear.

People who persist in overeating make themselves very
uncomfortable, and they are the people who meet with prostrations and
sunstrokes.

Workmen who are subjected to great heat should leave starch, fats,
and sugar, or any form of sweets, alone. Drink freely of pure
water--positively no alcoholics; for lunch, ice cream and fruit. The
ice cream is sweet and fat and evolves heat. its effects should be
watched, and if the heat is harder to endure on days that the ice
cream is used, it would be wise to stop it.

Ices may be used too often, and to the detriment of health. The
injurious effects of all classes of foods are so little known by
laymen, and even by physicians, that few are willing to believe that
their favorite "bonnes bouches" cause the discomfort they
experience. I see people daily suffering so greatly that they are
driven to seek relief and cure; yet they are unwilling to part with
the habit that causes their unhappiness. Indeed, it is almost
impossible to convince them that ill can come from so simple a
pleasure.

Iced drinks should be taken in great moderation. The cold drink
habit is like all other habits--it grows on what it feeds. The more
ice used, the stronger the demand. A drink of ice water taken an hour
after a hearty meal often generates an insatiable thirst, which, if
satisfied, will positively cause indigestion, and not infrequently
start a derangement that may end in typhoid fever or some other acute
malady; or a chronic irritation may be started that will end in ulcer
or cancer of the stomach.

Extremely cold drinks and extremely hot drinks are equally
injurious. The very sick should always be watched, and artificial heat
used continually to keep the extremities warm.

Thousands and thousands have died who would have lived if that one
little chore of keeping their feet warm had been attended to
properly.

If it could be generally known and remembered that the function of
heat-making is suspended during sickness, and that the very old, the
very young, and those who are greatly run down are liable to freeze
up--collapse--in the hottest weather, deaths from this cause might be
prevented by seeing to it that they are kept comfortably warm.

Many cholera-infantum cases die every summer--July and
August--because those who care for them believe the babies feel the
heat as other people do, and no attention is given to keeping them
warm. Death in such cases comes from chilling or freezing to
death.

Dry heat is more endurable than moist heat. A humid atmosphere is
very enervating.

Every summer nearly all cities of this country suffer deaths from
heat strokes.

Sunstroke usually occurs among those who are dissipated. Sensuality
perhaps covers the whole class. I do not believe any suffer from this
disease who are not enervated from sensuality.

Those who work in overheated places and are food- or
alcohol-poisoned are in line for heat prostrations.

Various disorders may persist after a recovery from heat stroke;
namely, neuralgia, headache, and sometimes strange ideas or
notions. These troubles, however, result as much from wrong daily life
as from the previous sickness . Indeed, such cases may be cured of
these relics of former sickness if the patients will follow a proper
style of living.